Chungbuk National Univ. Prof. Kim Beom-su explains background and effects of NMN liposome cosmetic

He explained that after carrying out a startup project run by the university, incorporation was a mandatory requirement, so starting a company came naturally. In this process, Professor Kim moved into product development based on his research on NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide).

Kim Beom-su said he became interested in the substance after reading an article about NMN in Science Times in 2018. The article reported that when 22-month-old aged mice were given NMN, their cell condition changed to resemble that of 6-month-old young mice. The findings greatly sparked Professor Kim's interest in the anti-aging potential of NMN.

Kim Beom-su stressed that NMN is not a substance anyone can easily make. He explained that producing NMN requires the skill of organic synthesis experts, or, for fermentation-based production, securing and developing strains that make NMN well. This suggests a high technical barrier to NMN production.

Professor Kim said that taking NMN can therefore raise NAD+ levels, activating these important biological reactions and producing antioxidant effects.

Professor Kim said it is true that taking NMN raises NAD+ levels and increases the number of beneficial substances, but he drew a line by saying that not taking NMN does not mean one will get cancer or similar. He explained that NAD+ is an important substance that already exists in the body, and NMN is a concept of replenishing NAD+ to strengthen its role. His remarks are seen as a caution against NMN being misunderstood as a cure-all.

Kim Beom-su said that out of curiosity about NMN, he bought the product through overseas direct purchase eight years ago and took it himself. He said he felt no effect for the first two or three days, but after about three days he suddenly felt a strong urge to exercise. Although he was not usually fond of exercise, he said he became motivated enough to try push-ups, and added that although this is a personal experience, it was the moment he felt NMN's effect.

Professor Kim said clinical results confirmed a clear increase in NAD+ levels after NMN intake. Safety was also a key concern, and no side effects appeared during the test period even with excess intake. No notable adverse reactions were reported among participants who took NMN for 14 days, and this led to a positive assessment of its safety.

It is reported that a company founded by David Sinclair is conducting clinical trials on patients with Alzheimer's disease. However, he pointed out an institutional constraint: if NMN is approved as a drug, it could no longer be sold as a health functional food, forcing consumers to buy it at a much higher price.

Professor Kim confessed that in the past he did not really trust most health functional foods. However, after encountering NMN research results, he now assesses NMN as a product sitting on the boundary between medicine and health food. This reveals his view that NMN may show meaningful effects beyond that of an ordinary health functional food.

Professor Kim Beom-su said that after founding the lab and wrestling with how to commercialize his NMN research, he initially considered health functional foods. However, he said that Korea's approval process for health functional foods is very strict, takes a long time, and costs a great deal, so he switched direction to cosmetics development, which has a comparatively lower barrier to entry. Through research on NMN production and delivery technology, he began developing a cosmetic that delivers the NMN ingredient effectively to the skin.

Professor Kim said the NMN cosmetic offers the possibility of preventing skin aging through topically applied NMN. He pointed out that although oral NMN is also effective, its bioavailability (the proportion that actually reaches specific cells in the body) can drop when taken by mouth. He said oral NMN passes through the stomach and liver, is absorbed in the small intestine, and then spreads throughout the body, so the amount reaching skin cells may be limited.

In contrast, he stressed that applying NMN directly to the skin can deliver the active ingredient more effectively to skin cells, maximizing the anti-aging effect. He said this approach can raise the skin absorption rate of NMN and is expected to produce a localized effect.

Professor Kim's argument is therefore that NMN in cosmetic form can have a more direct impact on improving skin aging than is reachable by oral intake.

Professor Kim agreed with the common view that cosmetic ingredients have difficulty penetrating deep into the skin. He said ordinary cosmetics often stay on the skin surface and disappear, making it hard for the active ingredients to reach the cells beneath. He described how cosmetics are often perceived as merely 'playing on the skin's surface' rather than penetrating into it, hinting at the need to develop NMN liposome technology to overcome this limitation.

Professor Kim Beom-su of Chungbuk National University explained how NMN liposomes are manufactured. He said that among various manufacturing methods, he used a device that uses a specific type of reactor to create a particular fluid-dynamic environment so that the NMN ingredient is well encapsulated inside the liposomes. Professor Kim noted that this technology is hard to understand from a general explanation, a know-how that suggests a core technology has been incorporated.

Professor Kim Beom-su described how far the NMN liposome cream penetrates the skin. Measurements taken 30 minutes after application showed the NMN ingredient still remained at the level of the stratum corneum. Considering the average thickness of the stratum corneum is 10 to 20 micrometers, he explained that the ingredient has either barely passed through the stratum corneum or is still within it. He added that whether it penetrates further after 30 minutes has not been confirmed.

Professor Kim Beom-su admitted that there is insufficient clear proof of the whitening effect of the NMN liposome cream. In verifying the whitening effect, there were many uncontrolled variables, such as whether test subjects were outdoors, making it difficult to tell whether the change came from the cream itself or from other factors. This shows the importance of controlling clinical conditions in objectively proving the actual efficacy of cosmetics.

Test results showed a 50% improvement in moisture content. Although the host noted that ordinary cosmetics can also improve moisture content, Professor Kim highlighted the 50% improvement rate of the NMN cream to emphasize the product's effect.

Professor Kim Beom-su reaffirmed the reason he chose cosmetics as the NMN product during the founding of BioChemi Lab. He explained that oral health functional foods require very strict approval processes that take years and enormous costs, whereas cosmetics involve a much simpler process and a lower barrier to entry. This reflects a practical judgment to bring research results to market quickly.

Professor Kim Beom-su mentioned that there are research papers suggesting NMN may also affect improvements in human athletic performance. However, he hinted that although such papers exist, it is still hard to draw a clear conclusion about how reliably NMN improves athletic performance in the human body. This suggests that further research and verification of NMN's effects on humans are needed.